In 2012 in the Monaco Grand Prix, commentators felt compelled to suggest that Massa was having one of his inspired days as he tracked Alonso too closely for comfort. Alonso lapped some way off the pace of leaders Webber, Rosberg and Hamilton but as the pit-stops were approaching he suddenly unleashed his full potential and began catching them.

As each driver stopped Alonso found himself in the lead and setting purple sectors. He had preserved the fragile 2012 rubber by not running in the hot draft from the preceding cars – especially at a circuit as notoriously difficult to over-take on as Monaco. If Ferrari had been a little braver with the strategy, another couple of laps and he would have emerged in the lead and won the race. As it was he finished third in a car which frankly had no right to be contesting the title.

Which perfectly demonstrates the difference between an Alonso and a Hamilton.

“We knew as a team that we had some problems part of the way through our second stint, but we thought that we would be okay to manage it, not just me, but Nico as well, and that is why we were going at the pace we were going. I jumped him in the stop and I was thinking ‘wow what an amazing feeling’ then straight away that lap the brakes failed so there was nothing I could do.

The thing is I was following him and when you are following someone you are getting more heat – he was in clean air the whole time in front and so there was not really much I could do.

When I finally came out in front I think by then everything was already cooked so there was nothing I could do.”

Of course every post-race news report states the same story – “A run of race wins is what I’m going to have to do….I’m two DNFs down; that’s almost 50 point’s I’ve lost….”

But if Hamilton had been caught out by the questions of BBC’s Lee McKenzie, those same headlines would have torn into the British driver for disrespecting his team and his team-mate. Mckenzie is liked by the viewers and many drivers enjoy being interviewed by her, with maybe the exception being Raikkonen but she is also very astute in her questioning which can at times catch drivers out. She was the interviewer when Lewis made his notorious “Ali G” statement…

LMc: “what a disappointing day, how you feeling?”

LH: “ok….ok… nothing i could do about it i did the best i could gave it everything i could … shame for the team we couldn’t get the 1-2 for the team.”

LMc:”did you watch the end of the race was it a nervous time?”

LH:”no, nothing nervous really about it, I was getting changed, nothing i can say”

LMc:”Team would have loved to have Nico Rosberg winning. But maybe for a couple of minutes were you a Daniel Ricciardo fan… every point’s going to matter this year.”

Hamilton gave a wry smile at this and answered carefully

LH:“every point will, that’s two dnfs for me – none for Nico but these are learning experiences..”

Red Bull insists Adrian Newey is not retiring. On Sunday, off the back of reported huge-money poaching efforts by Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren, the world champion team announced that Newey has agreed a new “multi-year” deal. But Red Bull also said 55-year-old Newey will be working on “new Red Bull Technology projects”, while merely “advising and mentoring” the F1 team “as it develops its formula one cars over the next few seasons”.

And interviews given by Newey in the hours before Sunday’s Canadian grand prix made it sound as though the Briton is stepping away from F1. Indeed, Red Bull’s Dr Helmut Marko admits Newey is “disappointed” at the state of today’s F1, where unbridled technical inspiration is a thing of the past.

“One must understand that whatever he has done has been banned or restricted by the rulemakers shortly thereafter,” he lamented. “The technical rules have clearly restricted his work, which has frustrated him, but instead of losing him, we have found this solution. Newey will remain active with Red Bull Racing for another year,” Marko told Germany’s Sky, but at the same time he will be fronting what Marko referred to as the new ‘Advanced Technology Centre’.

How Newey will split has time has “not yet been fully defined”, Marko admits, “but Adrian’s genius and incredible wealth of experience will still be available to the team.”

Force India smells a rat, after Sergio Perez was penalised for a terrifying crash at the end of Sunday’s Canadian grand prix. As they tussled for fourth on the last lap, Williams’ Felipe Massa hit the back of Mexican Perez’s Force India, sending them both into the tyres at high speed. They were both transported to Montreal’s Sacre Coeur hospital for checks and later released with no injuries.

Ultimately, the stewards sided with Massa, penalising Perez five places on the forthcoming Austrian grand prix grid. According to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport, however, Force India suspects a conspiracy. That’s because, in addition to the four stewards in Montreal including former driver Derek Daly, also in the stewards room on Sunday was Adrian Fernandez.

Former Indycar driver and Mexican – Fernandez was Perez’s manager until two years ago, when they acrimoniously split. “The driver steward was Derek Daly,” said Force India team manager Andy Stevenson. “I don’t know why Fernandez was asked for his opinion.”

FIA race director Charlie Whiting insisted: “From time to time, there are observers to the stewards. Fernandez will be the driver representative in Russia, so we invited him here to have a look.” Whiting said any talk of an anti-Perez conspiracy is “nonsense”.

“I got away perfectly. I think I reacted well and had a bit of luck into the first corner. Nico and Lewis tore into each other a bit and I could pass Lewis, but it was obvious that I wouldn’t be able to keep him behind. You could see how he just sailed past, even from quite far behind.”

“Pardon my French, but it should be allowed to say that our bucket of bolts is nowhere on the straights. It’s frustrating to trail someone for fifty laps. You try and fail, drop back, save the tyres, claw back to him and it’s all in vain, because you’re down on power. It’s even more frustrating if a win is up for grabs.”

Q: Did you simply lose too much time behind Hülkenberg?

“Quite obviously. My race was pretty much over right there and then. We simply couldn’t get past – everybody could see that. Without Force India running into problems we would never have passed them. It’s a pity of course that we couldn’t come up with some clever bit of strategy. It just didn’t happen. So in the end I even lost a position and was lucky that Felipe didn’t punt me off.”

Q: “You’ve congratulated Daniel for the win. How hard was it to do that?”

“I’m obviously quite pissed off because the strategy shafted me. For him it is of course a great day. I don’t think it serves any purpose to run around sulking in such a situation. Of course it upsets you as we aren’t here to come second or third, especially on days when we have a shot at winning.

It’s great for him that he found a way past Perez when he ran into brake troubles at just the right time. It’s Daniel’s day and it would be unseemly not to make it a good one for him. He’ll be sleeping well tonight… (grinning) or more precisely tomorrow morning.”

Q: So how did you make it past Perez in the end?

“Sergio braked early. They ran into brake problems and it got progressively worse. That’s the only reason I even got a chance to overtake. It was obvious we could have gone faster and Felipe caught our bunch quite rapidly, too. The pace of the Force India was quite slow, but they were clever and defended well. We just didn’t have the oomph to get past.”

“In the end it luckily worked out for me. I came out of the last corner well and he missed his breaking point. That brought us side-by-side. I went out of the slip-stream – DRS open, engine on full pelt and could see him still pull away. Well that’s just frustrating. His DRS is closed, mine is open and that should make about a 15 kph difference and even then we go nowhere. That was that for my race, because we couldn’t came up with something clever in terms of strategy.”

Q: What would you have done differently in terms of strategy?

“No idea, honestly. I’m not behind the pit wall and have no idea what’s going on around me. It’s easy for me to go out here saying we should have done something different, but I don’t even know if there was even an option to do so. Perhaps there was nothing we could have done anyway.”

“The only thing I can think of would be taking a punt with the tyres. They were fairly uncritical and some guys like Hülkenberg ran them competitively for quite some time without problems.”

Q: Can you describe what happened between Massa and Perez at the end?

“I passed him on the way to turn one and saw that they were quite close to each other. I saw something white filling my rear view mirrors and opened the steering in the last moment. I went right and Felipe flew by where I had just been. That was somewhat surreal, but I was lucky that he didn’t hit me.”

Q: Do you take home anything positive from this race?

“It has been one of the two races where we didn’t have any problems, so there is something positive. It’s a great day for us. After the catastrophic winter tests – to come back like that and be right were we need to be when Mercedes mucks it up. That’s very good. But as a racing driver you want to win and if you don’t despite having the chance to, you cannot be satisfied.”

The Formula One paddock was unofficially christened the ‘Piranha Club’ some years ago. Competition doesn’t exist merely between the anorexic-like athletes, but also between corporations, manufacturers, suppliers, teams and team personnel. It is not a place for the feint-hearted when deals about being spoken about when hiring the best.

Ferrari supposedly attempted to lure Adrian Newey to Maranello but failed. The Italian media were quite blase in their response to the annual news release. Lauda confirmed he had spoken to him as well – which speaks volumes of his view on Paddy Lowe – but ultimately the Red Bull man played his hand last and signed up for a new attraction at Red Bull Towers.

Following the weekend’s breaking news that Red Bull had re-signed Newey to the squad but heading up his own Advanced Technologies Centre – many in the paddock rejoiced that he is stepping back from the front-lines and allowing his lieutenants to take over the reins of the design philosophy.

With the retirement of Rory Byrne some years back, Newey has generally been accepted as the best designer of this generation. But any pouring of champagne at his ‘retirement’ may have been a little premature. The technology centre is still in the process of being built and until it is ready he will continue working as technical director.

“I’m not ready for the beach just yet so I’ll do this for a little bit longer and see what happens after that. I will remain fully involved in the coming months and will design the 2015 car. After, I will take on more of an advisory role and will always be there for my colleagues if they need advice.”

As reported and speculated on TJ13 some weeks ago, Mclaren and Red Bull have reached an agreement over aerodynamicist Dan Fallows. Mclaren were to take Red Bull to court as they felt Red Bull had encouraged Fallows to break his agreement with the Woking team.

At the time Mclaren announced they had signed Red Bull’s head of aerodynamics – Peter Podromou – as well as Dan Fallows. Fallows received a promotion within Red Bull and decided to remain with the Milton Keynes team which brought about litigation between the teams.

Over the Canadian Grand Prix weekend a deal was agreed, in principle, that may allow Podromou to join Mclaren later in the year rather than have to wait for his gardening leave to finish on 31st December.

Horner said: “I have a handshake with Mr Dennis which, being a gentleman and a man of his word, means we have an understanding.”

A Mclaren spokesperson added, “They have discussed and resolved a number of issues. As Christian says, a handshake is all you need with Ron…” Hmmmm

I don’t think Prodromou regrets his move. He knew what was coming and that’s why he jumped ship. He also suspected Renault was the weaker engine partner and he just wanted to go somewhere where he might have a chance of a title in the next 5 years.

A bit controversial what I’ll say, but I said it before. RBR was all about Newey. Now that he semi-retires from F1, that’s the end of them. Can’t see them staying for long. Vettel will soon move to Ferrari and Ricciardo to some other leading team (maybe Macca) in 2-3 years’ time.

I wonder if this ties in with the junior team ‘winding up’… there’s only 3 drivers strictly on it, which can cover the next 5 years or so for Toro Rosso. Gasly at 18 is the youngest, so he can wait for Kvyat to move up to Red Bull before coming in at Toro Rosso. Sainz Jr will replace Vergne next year, and Lynn is there probably to keep him on his toes. Alonso is getting behind Sainz Jr, as he knows he is the only Spanish replacement F1 driver on the horizon, with Alguersuari in Formula E and Juncadella the Mercedes junior driver.

If Kvyat shapes up as a Vettel replacement in a few years, there wouldn’t be the onus to keep Seb on as they cut costs from their huge budget/accept merely running in the points consistently/being regular podium contenders, before selling off Toro Rosso and then works team itself. Perhaps a title sponsorship of F1 could achieve the same objective? Or a controlling stake post-Bernie? It would be another big cash cow for Red Bull…

Long term Red Bull involvement in the sport ? Buying the commercial rights to the sport would probably the best way forward for them.

As far as Newey goes ? I think it’s less of things changing on the technical front as him getting bored with the sport (once again) and wanting to do something else. So I won’t be surprised if we see a Red Bull Sailing boat entered into the America’s cup designed by one Adrian Newey.
Newey had/has a good group of people turning his drawing board ideas into reality. The new contract from Red Bull is to keep him out of the clutches of the other teams and to keep the door ajar if he wants to go back into designing F1 cars full time once more. And just because Newey is stepping back, is not going to automatically mean Red Bull’s wheels will fall off etc. As for Red Bull leaving the sport, I guess that all depends on what Mateschitz wants to do.

Saying that RB is all about Newey is quite an apalling lack of respect for the hundreds of people working for them. We saw between 2000 and 2009 that having Newey doesn’t automatically mean that you win. Saying that Newey won those four titles is just a lame-arse excuse perpetrated by other teams to explain why they’re shit.
Last time I checked the Newey-designed car got quite comprehensibly beaten this year, because Merc outspent the lot of them, including RB and Ferrari. They even neglected their DTM program for it. They are an absolute disgrace in DTM this year with all but one Merc usually dropping out in Q1. As you can see there are several ways to skin that particular cat.

For every championship winning car Newey has designed you can find several examples of ones that were no where close to that. Red Bull were smart and built the technical department around Newey, and left the management side of things to Horner and co.
The difference between Red Bull and the rest in previous seasons ?
1. Building the team around Newey, to enable Newey to get on with designing the car and exploiting technical regulations.
2. Handing those designs over to talented people who turned the designs into a reality.
3. The Race team – Horner and co
4. Vettel learning how to get the best out of the car.

The difference this season ? Ross Brawn’s ability to organize a team and get them concentrating on a single goal. In this case designing a power train and car that work perfectly together, taking advantage of changes in the rules etc 2015 might be a very different season for Mercedes, it all depends on, if Paddy Lowe can keep what Brawn put in place and develop it further. Or if it all falls apart very quickly.

“It’s been a while….” Two weeks may be a lifetime in writing computer programmes… But…

I seem to remember TJ13 called specifically Vettel’s dodgy gear box the week before the Monaco GP…. Then on team radio during the race Vettel states he only has 1st gear…

no insight there… Just another lucky guess…

Newey’s no. 2, Prodromu is leaving and decided to do so when he knew Newey was offski… so RB have since desperately counter offered Dan Fallows (Prodromu’s No.2) who was also leaving… by offering him the world….

Why leave when the throne is coming free? Because Prodromu knows how dependant RB are on Newey…. and also what a poisoned chalice it would be to follow in his footsteps…

What ever happened to ‘racing incidents’. Force India could have pulled Perez in when his brakes were going, Williams could have warned Massa that Perez had brake problems.
Felipe, in a tow, braked earlier, Sergio with brake problems, braked earlier.
Was Perez solely responsible for the crash, I dont think so.

Absolutely staggered by the blame game – Sergio had brake problems and went to cover the inside line – Massa was coming faster than either thought – so a racing accident.
There seems to be a need to always find someone to blame!

Yeah but come on. Perez had a broken car. Managing his brakes. Trying to get this very good result that he was going to get. Driving frustrated and exhausted. I think his leaving the line might be due to a twitching car. Just as opposed to that massa was trying to get his best result of the season. Seeing that his car is much better than perez. A bit frustrated cuz he could get passed the red bulls. And than in a matter of milliseconds perez his car just goes there where massa didn’t expect it. And he hits it. Race incident. Cuz they are clearly racing their Ass off. Both with other kinds of problems. I think none of them should be penalised. This is racing at the top. Sometimes it goes wrong. Both lose their points that they clearly had. Punishment enough for me.

You got it spot on Bruznic, I watch the replay over and over (sky+) and Perez only moved the steering wheel to correct a rear end twitch when he applied the breaks, plus he was going defensive anyway. Did Massa think Perez was gonna leave the door open and wave him through? In the real world if you hit someone from behind, it’s YOUR fault, period! Not forgetting Perez was in mega old tyres, of course the car is going to twitch and squirm around under breaking, especially when in the heat of battle. I don’t rate Massa anyway and looking at his lacklustre display yesterday I can’t see how he escaped blameless

Considering the closing speeds of the two cars when they connected, it seems to me that Perez had already started to brake – and turn in to the corner as he is entitled to do – as Massa hit him.
I would have been inclined to put it down as a racing incident.

I also wondered why Massa didn’t move over a bit more to the left to cover exactly this kind of eventuality.
If you are going to outbrake someone like that, then you should be prepared for a very fast closing speed, and its possible consequences.

Not an easy one to call, though.

Looking at the penalty, it doesn’t appear that the stewards attached a huge amount of blame to Perez, given the severity of the accident.

If I’d had a chance to earlier I would’ve replied along similar lines. FI’s best defense was the ragged state of the car. In particular if telemetry showed that loss of traction at the rear or loss of load then Perez’ steering input is understandable.

Of course, you could also take a step back and say given the condition of his car he should’ve been aware this might happen yadda yadda but at the end of the day you could make this argument on both sides. However, without access to telemetry that the stewards have it’s all just second guessing and hypotheticals. Granted it was fun when Rosberg caused the yellow in Monaco, but the potential for someone to have been seriously injured (Vettel) likely drove them to apportion responsibility.

They did not, however, put any points on his license. Make of that what you will.

Regarding this Massa / Perez crash, I’ve not seen many folks mention the relevance of a similar incident in 2012 at the Monaco GP3 race involving Derek Daly’s son Conor.

Like Massa, Conor was in a fast car moving up through the field. Like Massa, Conor ran into the rear of a competitor at the beginning of a high speed, heavy braking zone.

Afterwards, Conor made his feelings clear about the incident in this interview with Will Buxton, willthef1journo.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/daly-questions-driving-standards-following-horror-monaco-smash/

Conor was very critical of the very defensive moves of this competitor during the prior turns. In the incident, Conor was not prepared for his competitor to brake as early as he did.

Afterwards, the GP3 officials reviewed the incident, and came to the controversial decision that Conor was at fault, and they gave him a harsh 10 place grid penalty at the following race. (www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/100560).

Is it a coincidence that in a similar incident, where Derek is now the driver F1 Race Steward, that instead deciding it was a race incident, or a penalty for Massa, or a penalty for both drivers, he instead goes harshly against the driver who was hit from behind, similarly to Conor’s 2012 GP3 competitor?

Excellent memory, sir. I remember seeing it at the time, though I didn’t make the connection to Derek from Conor. Curious, as I recall it seemed as if the defensive driver was very much at fault though it may have simply been the rah rah commentators since we’re in the US.

Yes, that is exactly the point… the defensive driver was slower but driving with his eyes in the mirrors all around the track, per Conor. And he jinked a bit prior to their crash in the braking zone.

Derek invested a fair amount of energy in training not only his son, but other young American drivers on how to succeed as a professional racer. Derek’s book on that subject is outstanding, and I recommend it, but my point is that this GP3 incident may have clouded his judgement, as that incident negatively affected his son’s career. Perhaps Derek believes his son was done wrong by the stewards back in 2012, so yesterday he was seeing 2012 Monaco again.

It seems that Vettel’s luck from the past 3-4 years has now found Rosberg.

– He was lucky with the incident in Monaco that won him the pole and race.
(Some think it was deliberate, let’s call it luck)

– He was lucky with cutting the chicane with no repercussions.
(Some say that stewards told drivers before the race that they can do it only once – still, a bit of luck there)

– He was lucky it was Perez at P2 as the just couldn’t overtake for 15+ laps. If Perez wasn’t there, Ricciardo, Vettel, Massa, would have all overtaken Rosberg is successive laps.

– He was lucky, Hamilton retired for the second race this year.
(Some might argue that Lewis being stuck behind him hurt his brakes, still Lewis retired and he didn’t, there’s an element of luck there)

I won’t be surprised if in the end he wins the title with much less victories that Lewis. Let’s not forget his dad won his only title with only a single win back in 1982.

Let’s hope for not more retirements for Lewis as we do need a close championship. Noone likes a runaway leader.

How many times has the safer approach won in the end? These cars are at the cutting edge of technology. Not just the 2014 F1 cars but throughout their history. If you know you’re suffering problems wouldn’t the sensible approach have been nurse the car home, driver in clear air throughout, back down and get the points.
The multiple champions know they won’t win every day, but they will maximise everything they have every time.

Indeed, this marks out Alonso, Raikkonen pre-2014 and increasingly Hulkenberg. Button has also profited this season from scooping up the best of a bad situation – 4th place in Canada is the best example of that. By all accounts, Magnussen should be ahead of him in the points standings, but his ‘bad luck’, e.g. Malaysia, Monaco, has lost him valuable points.

He sure has made some questionable decisions that has cost him points and DNFs (Spain 2012). But what happened in China in 07 can’t be his fault. The whole world say that his tyres was down to the carcass and Kimi was catching him at a vast rate, yet the team kept him out.

That was more Dennis wanting to win the championship by winning the race as well. He was a rookie and it was the team (Dennis) who screwed up that day.

What happened yesterday could’ve happened to anyone, it’s just unfortunate that it was him. If anything I question what instructions the team gave him. I’m assuming that they could’ve seen that his brake temp was very high and probably could’ve told him to try and cool them.

This was what Toto said after the race about the failures on the car…

“”We changed the balance within the braking system and told them to both be careful.

“Both of them complied exactly to what they had been told to do. It was very marginal though.

“When Lewis entered into the pits, with a stationary car, the temperatures rose and when he went out the pedal just went soft and fell down completely. On Nico’s car he was lucky not to have that.”

Wolff said that Mercedes was not sure whether or not the overheating of its system was a track specific problem that related to Montreal, or had more to do with the jump in ambient temperatures.

“We don’t know yet,” he said. “What we know is that we had a peak in temperatures in a system that we did not expect to be as crucial as it was.”

“I won’t be surprised if in the end he wins the title with much less victories that Lewis. Let’s not forget his dad won his only title with only a single win back in 1982.”

I’d rather have 1 win and 1 WDC than 100 wins and 0 WDC’s. Whilst that is an extreme and unlikely example, that’s how I feel and from my exp that’s how all the racers around me as I raced felt. I have even heard Lewis say Titles are what’s important to him.

A race win is nice, wonderful, epic. But the built up feeling of winning whatever championship you are racing, knowing as you cross the line (in whatever position) that you won the season, the title, the trophy. That you are that years best, is indescribable. I have felt this one in my life and I will never forget it.

Like I said, I’d rather be a champion/multi champion with few wins than tons of wins and no titles. Of course, the ideal is to win tons and win many titles. That’s a given. But push comes to shove, nothing beats being the best for a season.

If I’d won more races than Schumacher (100-91), as long as I’d had fun winning them, I wouldn’t really care about a WDC as it would be a unique achievement in and of itself.
Obviously, I speak as someone who has never won a race in my life.
And I also completely agree with your comment!

Speaking of luck, Hamilton’s electronics control unit apparently had already failed, and was replaced after Saturday practice.
With Sunday’s failure, he might be looking at a grid penalty later this season, as he’s now on his fourth (Rosberg his third).

But Ricciardo didn’t use any dubious tactics to get in front of Vettel, so why would Vettel get upset?
Either Ricciardo is an exceptional driver, which is of course possible, or Vettel is not as good as people were saying and his title wins were down mainly to the car. 🙂

He didn’t mess up his in lap. He was tucked up behind Hulk ! Ricciardo did have Bottas, then Vettel in front, 1 cleared on 1 lap, the other on the next. Ergo, DR had some clean-ish air. Hence a way faster in lap. VET got traffic on the out lap. The rest is history!

If Bottas had stayed out even 1 lap more I think Vettel would have won the race.

Vettel was actually quite upset and admitted it quite openly in the interview. Here’s an excerpt from the interview he gave to Sky Germany:

Q: “You’ve congratulated Daniel for the win. How hard was it to do that?”
“I’m oviously quite pissed off because the strategy shafted me. For him it is of course a great day. I don’t think it serves any purpose to run around sulking in such a situation. Of course it upsets you as we aren’t here to come second or third, especially on days when we have a shot at winning.
It’s great for him that he found a way past Perez when he ran into brake troubles at just the right time. It’s Daniel’s day and it would be unseemly not to make it a good one for him. He’ll be sleeping well tonight… (grinning) or more precisely tomorrow morning.”

That answer by Vettel is all class. I am not a Vettel fan, nor do I dislike the boy. I respect his talent and ambition. I had no problem with Multi21 etc, but I don’t find him overly endearing. He’s funny, but cunning too, which is 100% fine.

That being said, that answer is all class. he clearly respects the enormity of what it is to win your first F1 grand prix. Something we can only imagine, but something that would be the culmination of many, many, many years of graft, work and risk from many people, not forgetting your own efforts and desires.

That interview had me in stitches. He was basically ranting away, but at no point did he sound bitter. For all the faux-pas’s he had in the past. That interview was rhetoric gold and you could almost feel like somewhere an RB press-officer was having a coronary. 😀

Vettel in German has missed his call as a comedian. He talks absolutey serious and suddenly shoots off a dry zinger that makes you guffaw. His problem is, he tries to emulate that in English and it often comes across wrong (like his balls in pool statement last year). In German, Vettel is absolutely hilarious. Best lines since Keke Rosberg. 😀

Amusing to read the reaction of many English “fans” on several English newspapers sites. Common themes are:

– Hamilton’s car is rigged to fail
– Rosberg’s father is friends with the stewards which is why his son doesn’t get penalties from them
– M-B are paying the stewards not to give penalties to Rosberg
– Ecclestone has instructed M-B that Rosberg has to win the WC as part of his deal with the German prosecutors to let him off
– Toto Wolf wants Hamilton to quit the team so his wife Susie can get the seat
– The FIA don’t want another English WC

Funny how the English get their knickers in a twist if they’re beaten by Germans. For all their sense of humour, some of them still seem to live in 1945. Which is a shame as I know differently. One of my best friends is a Brit from Enfield. Funny guy. We had an absolute ball letting people guess where I’m from. None of them got it right 😀 I won many a pints that day in numerous bets 🙂

Manky – I’m pretty sure that Brunanburh happened near me – Bromborough? Wirral. The vikings would have been fleeing past my house.. I live near to Thingwall, which was on time-team once as an example of it’s type of council meeting place.

Interesting to see the Twitter offensive that Force India is on concerning the accident between Massa and Perez, while Williams have made virtually no comments.

On the subject of Caterham. Fernandes has repeatedly claimed the team isn’t for sale. After what I saw at the track on Saturday and on TV on Sunday, a better question would be – who would want to buy the team? The were almost a second slower than Marussia in qualifying and during the race posted the slowest lap times and slowest speed trap times. The team is a dog with fleas.

I’m not a fan of RBR whining about being slow on the straights… While at the same time they’re fast (if not the fastest) in the corners. Set up is about compromise… Stop running so much downforce… Or if the “problem” runs deeper than that, too goddamn bad you designed your car to perform better in corners than a straight line. Let’s also remember they weren’t nearly the fastest in a straight line last year either, but weren’t complaining about their PU then.

Last year their high downforce setup was by choice. This year it’s by neccessity as that dyson in the back of their car couldn’t power a lawnmower. And to add insult to injury they have to pay millions for that junk. I think I would be slightly upset about that…

RE – Perez Penalty. – total BS. not a fan of either but clearly just a racing incident. Massa should have left more than zero room for error when attacking a car that was obviously deteriorating. total insanity by the stewards.